Originality

Extremely snooty people, probably English majors, have stated that no truly original story has been created since the Ancient Greeks. While I could easily dispute this assertion -- as far as I know, the Greeks didn't do surrealism as we understand it -- I am inclined to agree with the snobs and hipsters, at least in general. In fiction, there exists a finite number of concepts and archetypes from which to draw, and given the world's huge population coupled with such a long span of time, there probably isn't anything new to be had by writing. Your story has already been told countless times.

What is my point? Well, I was browsing the site and came upon a story in the recommended box that looks like something I'd enjoy. Unfortunately, upon reading its description, I realized that its setup is very similar to a story that I've been outlining for over a week (off-and-on; I do have a life outside Pony), although I'm willing to bet my own story is going in a different direction and will have a totally different resolution. That I am a SLOW writer does not help anything. Still, the fact that there is some conceptual overlap there makes me feel a bit dirty. Anyone who spent as long in academia as I did had it drilled into their heads that one must use one's own ideas or terrible consequences will result. This very site has a Group dedicated to "Unoriginal Fanfics" (that neither of my currently-published stories made it in there is a minor miracle).

This is actually a big reason I often don't read other peoples' fanfics even if I want to; I want to be able to say truthfully that I took no inspiration from them.

MLP has a huge fandom for what it is, but it's ultimately still a niche made up mostly of lonely nerds. Such groups, by their very nature, tend to think similarly.

The question I pose to myself is: "Should I continue to work on my story, risking the possibility of being accused of copying a better-known (and probably better-quality) writer?" Or should I just scrap my outline and bits of story? Neither option is optimal.

I think I'm going to keep going and take the risk – I'm actually working on several things right now, one of which is nearly ready to post – because I don't like to leave decent story ideas hanging, even if I wasn't the first to come up with the concept.

Oh, for the record, the concept in question is that Human!Twilight and Human!Sunset used to be friends until something happened to the latter – it plays a pivotal role, though is not the main focus, of one of my in-development stories.